Adam Turner is an award-winning Australian freelance technology journalist with a passion for gadgets and the "digital lounge room".

Australia's new Digital Content Guide is nothing more than a list of local content services.

Telling us where to spend our money isn't the same as offering us a better deal on movies and music.

Australia's copyright debate has mostly focused on a piracy crackdown, with little attention given to issues such as legal DVD format-shifting and US-style Fair Use laws. The government's idea of copyright reform is clearly skewed towards protecting the rights of the content providers rather than striking a better deal for Australian consumers.

It seems the only right Australian consumers have is the right to remain silent while we continue to get screwed on pricing and availability simply because we're Australian. Before Aussie pirates turn over a new leaf they need to see the same from the content providers, acknowledging that the movie houses and broadcasters helped create the environment which drove people to piracy and thus must be part of the solution.

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Yesterday it looked like we might see a first tentative step in that direction when the industry heavyweights banded together to launch Australia's new Digital Content Guide. The new website is a joint effort from the Australasian Performing Rights Association, Australian Recording Industry Association, Australian Screen Association (formerly the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft), Copyright Agency Ltd., News Corp, Foxtel and Village Roadshow. The site was organised by Music Rights Australia – formerly Music Industry Piracy Investigations.

With all those major industry acronyms backing the Digital Content Guide you'd expect something special. Something designed to address the shortcomings of the current system and convince pirates that content providers are keen to win them back. Something which says the content industry wants to offer Australians a better deal, rather than treat them with contempt. You'd be expecting too much.

For all the song and dance of the Digital Content Guide launch all we got was a simple website listing legit Australian content services. It's "your guide to finding safe and licensed content" – offering a list of links which you could whip together yourself with a five-minute Google search. It includes Foxtel and Fetch TV along with well-known music and movie stores and the various Catch Up TV services. You'll also find a handful of gaming sites, while the eBook section is still empty.

It's hard to believe that so much effort from so many stakeholders could have produced so little. Some people were expecting the Digital Content Guide to be an interactive site letting you search for specific content such as "Game of Thrones" and see a list of providers and a pricing comparison – similar to the Can I Stream It service for US content. Instead all we got was a glorified spreadsheet with several glaring omissions. The Setanta streaming sports service is missing – a viable alternative to Foxtel for some soccer and rugby fans. Xbox Video rates a mention but not Sony's equivalent PlayStation Store. Obviously the funds were channelled into fancy web design rather than extensive research.

The site is certainly educational – it offers a clear picture of exactly how far content providers are prepared to go to win back people they've driven away. The copyright debate has a while to play out yet, but if anyone cites the Digital Content Guide as evidence that content providers are coming to the party then it's hard to take anything they say seriously.

A single website was never going to completely solve the issue of piracy, but the Digital Content Guide suggests that the industry isn't even trying – safe in the knowledge that the government will always side with big business over consumers.

What are your thoughts on the Digital Content Guide? Is it an olive branch or a slap in the face?

11 comments so far

To expect anything different from this Government is naive at best. Their first order of business seems to be to repay their pre-election debts: overturning the FIFO amendments to give power back to the major banks, dumping the MRRT and carbon tax to repay the mining industry. Now they have to repay that US media mogul Emperor Rupert for all his support. Ordinary constituents can eat cake.

Commenter

Peter

Location

Chapel Hill

Date and time

August 06, 2014, 10:50AM

Peter

Are you on the right thread? The site was put together by Industry players not the Fed Gov't.

Commenter

$keptic

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

August 06, 2014, 11:35AM

$keptic, yes, I am on the correct thread as I interpreted the broader topic from Adam as relating to copyright protection. But thanks for you concern.

Commenter

Peter

Location

Chapel Hill

Date and time

August 06, 2014, 12:02PM

ownership of content should be format agnostic, anything else is plain stupidity and revenue protectionism for the content providers..

Commenter

Victorious Painter

Date and time

August 06, 2014, 11:06AM

Hi Adam, they do mention the sony store, video unlimited.

The site is very disappointing, you would have to be living under a rock to find any of the information useful,

Commenter

Lazor

Date and time

August 06, 2014, 11:45AM

Industry-backed content guide turns out to be useless. Please leave a comment below if you are surprised by this.

Commenter

Funny How

Date and time

August 06, 2014, 1:17PM

There are other parties just as guilty in this situation, and they are the companies that distribute digital content without paying reasonable fees to do so.Many of these companies are loose organisations, where the principals are hard to identify.Are they too going to be suitably penalised to the same extent as the individual who downloads for personal use? After all, for them, the content is freely available on a medium which, we all pay a significant subscription for!Also bear in mind, that torrent users re-feed, they are obliged to, to be a member.

Why is the end user being targeted when the service is freely available?

Another very guilty party is, of course, Foxtel. They dominate the local scene (with some help from government) and limit competition, thereby being able to significantly overchargethe casual user. To my mind this is much more serious than the small end users actionsand certainly involves many more dollars.

All components of the industry need properly fixing before slamming the customers!

Bobthequill

Commenter

Bobthequill

Date and time

August 06, 2014, 3:54PM

The content industries attitude can be summed up by the Anti piracy message you get blasted with whenever you watch a DVD you have bought or rented. The idiocy of it is that they mention the fact that the irritating and insulting message that you can't fast forward or skip in most cases won't be present on a Pirate DVD.Somehow they seem to think that the absence of an insulting and irritating nuisance is a reason not to watch a pirate DVD, just as the absence of an easily accessible affordable and convenient local source for all globally available content and not just the dribs and drabs they let us have makes them think we'll fork over squillions to watch stuff that's ancient history and probably missing something.

Commenter

Miffed

Location

Australia

Date and time

August 06, 2014, 6:26PM

Finally an article that says it as it is.

It galls me the lengths our government will go to...To ensure their corporate bedfellows are happy and comfortable.

I remember a day when our elected representatives - represented everyone.